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Mag Jay
important years. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life

Published with permission from Meg Jay, c/o JANKLOW & NESBIT ASSOCIATES

Prologue. About the millennium

Book " Important Years"Designed for those over twenty. However, parents believe that this book is for them. Colleagues believe that I wrote it for psychotherapists and teachers. When twenty-year-old boys and girls ask me: “Who is this book for?” - they sincerely rejoice when they hear in response: “For you!”.

Many are struck by the fact that instead of talking O those who are over twenty, I prefer to communicate With them. Enough already of all these adults who only do what they discuss with the youth! People in their twenties are also adults, and they have earned the right to take part in the discussion own life. Perhaps, under the influence of popular culture, we consider twenty-year-old boys and girls to be too cocky, ignorant, lazy or jaded to take part in such discussions - but in fact this is far from the case. In my private practice, as well as in college and graduate school, I have met many young people in their twenties who are in dire need of meaningful, sincere communication. In the book "Important Years" I use my experience scientific research and clinical practice in order to debunk such myths about the age of twenty to thirty years: thirty is the new twenty; we cannot choose our family; to do something later in life is to do it better. But the argument that young men and women over twenty lack the common sense to be interested in such information and understand that it can change their lives is perhaps the biggest misconception.

The generation of twenty-year-old boys and girls of the 21st century (the so-called millennium generation) is not like the post-war generation, whose representatives were very young when they created families and made a career. Those who are now in their twenties have the most unstable jobs, and in the evenings they come home, meeting there not loving relatives, but roommates from whom you can expect anything. The millennial generation is also different from generation X - young people who do not strive to get everything at once. From their Generation X siblings and colleagues, they know what it can be like to put off important life tasks until the age of thirty or forty. They see the stress many Gen Xers are under and want to find an alternative.

The pendulum has swung from “I settled too early” to “I started too late,” and millennials are trying to find the right path. However, all those high expectations on which this generation was brought up collided with the realities of the global economic crisis, because of which the very “correct path” turned out to be even more distant than ever before. However, instead of complaining about what the economy (or their parents) has done to them, young millennials are ready to move on and wait for someone to ask them, “What are you going to do with all this?”.

The Important Years was published in April 2012, so its largest and most appreciative audience is those who celebrated their 20th birthday at the turn of the millennium. I have received many touching letters from parents saying, "The only gift I would like to receive for Mother's Day this year is for my twenty-year-old son to read your book." People in their early thirties, on the other hand, write, "I wish there was this book when I was twenty." But the most numerous and emotional messages I receive are from young men and women in their twenties by mail, Facebook and Twitter, all of whom say how much it means to them that someone has reached out to them directly. But here's the question: Why hasn't anyone spoken to these young people before?

Perhaps the modern culture is to blame for this, preaching a condescending attitude towards young people, in which they are perceived more as descendants of baby boomers, and not as a new generation. But it's also because I got to see a side of twentysomething life that other people don't see.

My first psychotherapy session with a twenty-year-old client was in 1999, after which for ten years I mostly listened to the representatives of the millennial generation behind closed doors - every day, from morning to evening. Probably, modern youth shares with someone the details of their personal life However, on their blogs, on Facebook and on Twitter, they are much less outspoken than in my office. That is why I know about those who are over twenty, what others do not know about them. Moreover, I even know what they do not know about themselves.

Paradoxically, young people born at the turn of the millennium experience a sense of relief and even inspiration when they dare to discuss with someone those qualities and problems that they are afraid to talk about. I am convinced that my clients (and the readers of this book) are not intimidated by difficult questions; they are rather afraid that no one does not set. When young people in their twenties hear what I say to them, the most common reaction is not "I can't believe you're saying this" but "Why hasn't anyone told me about this before?"

Well, my dear readers, in this book you will find what you were looking for.

Age between twenty and thirty is extremely important. Eighty percent of fateful events occur in a person's life before the age of thirty-five. Two-thirds of income growth occurs in the first ten years of a career. By the age of thirty, more than half of people are married, dating or living with future life partners. The personality of a person changes most actively from twenty to thirty years, and not before or after this age. By the age of thirty, the human brain completes its development. The reproductive function of a woman reaches its peak at the age of twenty-eight.

Young millennials, as well as parents, leaders, teachers, and anyone interested in the subject, this book is for you.

Preface. Defining decade

In one of the few studies covering all periods of human life, employees of the Boston and Michigan universities analyzed dozens of stories written by prominent people at the end of their earthly journey. 1
See W. R. Mackavey, J. E. Malley, A. J. Stewart. “Remembering Autobiographically Consequential Experiences: Content Analysis of Psychologists’ Accounts of Their Lives” / Psychology and Aging 6 (1991): 50–59. In this study, autobiographically significant events were separated by stages of human development rather than by ten-year periods. In order to determine which decade of a person's life has the most significant events, I analyzed this data again, determining the average number of significant events per year at each stage of development. Then, based on averages, I determined the number of significant events per decades, rather than stages of development.

Researchers were interested in the so-called autobiographically significant milestones or circumstances and people who had a key impact on a person's later life. Important events took place from birth to death, but still that part of them, which determined the future life, fell on a period of twenty to thirty years.

It is logical that after we leave our parental home or graduate from university and become more independent, there comes a period of active self-development - a time when our actions determine our future. It may even seem that adulthood is one continuous period of autobiographically significant events and that the older we get, the more we control our lives. But it's not.

After thirty years, significant milestones in our lives are becoming less and less. The course has already ended or is close to completion. We have already devoted some time to a career or have decided not to do it. Perhaps we are starting a family. We have a home or other responsibilities that make it difficult for us to change something in our lives. Considering that 80 percent of the most important events in our lives happen by the age of thirty-five, after thirty we tend to either continue what we started in the period from twenty to thirty years, or try to make adjustments to the steps taken during this time.

The paradox is that what happens to us in our twenties doesn't seem all that important. It is generally accepted that the fateful moments of our lives are associated with meetings with interesting people. However, in reality this is not the case.

Scientists came to the conclusion that most important events that had a long-term effect (providing career growth, family well-being, personal happiness or lack of it) occurred over many days, weeks and even months, with almost no noticeable impact on the lives of people who became objects. research. The significance of these events was not always obvious initially, but in retrospect, people realized that this was what determined their future.

This book will tell you how to learn to recognize important stages in the life of twenty-thirty-year-olds, why this age is so important and how to make the most of it.

Introduction. Life in real time

Tired of lies and idleness, you lazily look out the window.
Fly week after week - you, however, do not care.
Thinking about something is just a burden; You are young, you have your whole life ahead of you...
Wasted killing time, at least once look back at the years.
The moment will come, and you will see clearly, and with wild horror you will understand,
That every year you get older - and you can’t turn back time.

Lyrics from Time: David Gilmour, Nick Mason, Roger Waters and Richard Wright of Pink Floyd

In any process of growth and development there is a so-called critical period. This is a certain period of maturation, during which, in the presence of appropriate external stimuli, active formation and development of abilities takes place. Before this period and after it, it is either difficult or even impossible.

Noam Chomsky, linguist

By the time Kate began attending psychotherapy sessions, she had been working as a waitress for over a year and living (not always peacefully) with her parents. Her father got her her first job, and they both knew that the problems that existed between them would soon make themselves felt again. But what struck me most was that Kate wasted her young years so senselessly. She grew up in New York City before moving to Virginia at the age of twenty-six, but she still did not have a driver's license, despite the fact that this limited her employment opportunities and made her feel like a passenger in her own life. Also because of this, Kate was often late for our meetings.

When Kate graduated from college, she hoped to fully experience all the opportunities that open up for a person in her twenties, and her parents actively encouraged her to do so. The girl's father and mother got married immediately after graduating from college, because they wanted to go to Europe together, and in the 70s of the twentieth century, their families could not close their eyes to the fact that they were not yet married. As a result, Kate's parents spent their honeymoon in Italy and returned home, having conceived a child. His father got a job as an accountant, and his mother was engaged in raising four children, among whom Kate was the youngest. By the time we met, the girl was trying to make up for what her parents had missed. It seemed to Kate that this would be the best time of her life, but so far she had only experienced stress and anxiety. “My twenty years just paralyze me,” she admitted. “No one told me it would be this difficult.”

Kate was constantly thinking about the problems of her twenties as a distraction from what was really going on in her life, and, it seemed to me, she tried to do the same in psychotherapy sessions. Kate came to them, sat on the sofa, kicked off her shoes, pulled up her jeans and started talking about the weekend. Our conversations often took on a multimedia nature, with the girl showing me emails and photos, and alerts for new text messages sounded intrusive throughout the session.

Somehow, between Kate's stories about the weekends, I managed to figure out the following: she thinks she would like to raise funds for charities, and also hopes to figure out what she would like to do in thirty years. “Thirty is the new twenty,” she said. This was the tip I needed.

I'm too partial to young people in their twenties to let Kate or anyone else in that age group waste my time. As a clinical psychologist who specializes in adult development, I have seen many young men and women in their twenties who do not think about the future. And then, at thirty or forty, bitter tears begin to shed, as they have to pay a high price (in a romantic, economic, and reproductive sense) for not being able to see the prospect at twenty.

I liked Kate and wanted to help her, so I insisted that she come to the sessions on time. I interrupted her when she started talking about her last partner and asked how things were going with getting a driver's license and finding a job. Perhaps most importantly, Kate and I discussed what should be the essence of our sessions and the meaning of her life in her early twenties.

Kate wanted to know whether it was better to attend therapy sessions for several years trying to figure out her relationship with her father, or to spend that money and time traveling around Europe in search of herself. I didn't support either option and told Kate that while most psychotherapists would agree with Socrates's statement, "The unexamined life is not worth living," in this case, I think the less well-known saying of the American psychologist Sheldon Kopp is more important: "The unlived life is not worth exploring."

I explained to Kate that it was irresponsible of me to quietly watch the most important years of her life pass fruitlessly. It's reckless to focus on Kate's past, knowing her future is in danger. I considered it wrong to discuss her weekends with a girl, if it was everyday life that made her unhappy. In addition, I sincerely believed that Kate's relationship with her father would not change until she brought something new to them.

Once Kate came to the next session and wearily sat down on the sofa in my office. Even sadder and more agitated than usual, she looked out the window and twitched her feet nervously as she talked about a Sunday dinner meeting with four college friends. Two of them came to the city for a conference. One had just returned from Greece, where she was recording lullabies as part of her dissertation work. Another brought her fiancé with her. When everyone sat down at the table, Kate looked at her friends and realized that she had nothing to brag about. She needed something they already had (a job, a goal, or a loved one), so she spent the rest of the day looking for the information she needed on the Craigslist email classifieds site. Most of the vacancies (as well as men) seemed uninteresting to her. Kate began to doubt that she could get what she wanted. As a result, the girl went to bed, feeling deceived.

Kate said in desperation, “I'm in my twenties now. Sitting in a restaurant, I realized that I had nothing to say about myself. There is nothing interesting on my resume. Basically, I don't have a decent resume. I don't have a loved one. I don't even know what I'm doing in this city. (She took out a handkerchief and burst into tears.) I was simply struck by the idea that the importance of open roads is greatly exaggerated. I would like to be more... I don't know... purposeful, whether".

In Kate's case, it wasn't too late to change things, but she really needed to take action. By the time she finished psychotherapy, she had her own apartment, a driver's license, a promising friend, and a fundraising job with a charity. Even the relationship with his father began to improve. During our last session, the girl thanked me for helping her catch up. She said that her life was finally "in real time."

The age of twenty to thirty years is that real time to be lived properly. A culture that considers thirty to be the new twenty has taught us that the period from twenty to thirty does not play a special role in our lives. Sigmund Freud once said: "Love and work, work and love - that's all that makes us human." Today, these aspects of human life take shape at a later age than in former times.

When Kate's parents were in their twenties, average age marriage and the appearance of the first child was twenty-one years 2
Comprehensive information on how the generation of the post-war birth boom differs from young people in their twenties of the 21st century can be found in the book: Neil Howe, William Strauss. Millennials Rising: The Next Great Generation (New York: Vintage, 2000).

Education was limited to graduation high school or college, and the young parents were mainly busy making money and running the household. Since the income of one of the spouses was sufficient to support the family, the men in most cases worked, while two-thirds of the women did not. People could work in the same field all their lives. At the time, the average home price was $17,000. 3
Data on how much houses cost in the past can be found at: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housing/census/historic/values.html.

Divorces and contraceptives have just begun to become widespread.

Then, within a single generation, there was a huge cultural shift. 4

There are many reliable and convenient contraceptives on the market; many women were able to work. By the turn of the new millennium, only half of young people were getting married before their thirties, and even fewer were having children. All this made the age of twenty to thirty a time of newfound freedom. The prevailing view has become that college is too expensive and unnecessary, and that university is more important, but in both cases there is plenty of time for leisure.

For hundreds of years, boys and girls in their twenties ceased to be children and immediately became husbands and wives. However, in just a few decades, young people have another period of time for development. But young people like Kate did not understand how to properly use the period between life in their parents and their own home, bought on credit.

As a result, the age of twenty to thirty years has become a time of uncertainty for young people. In 2001, the Economist published an article titled Bridget Jones Economy. 5
See “The Bridget Jones Economy: Singles and the City – How Young Singles Shape City Culture, Lifestyles, and Economics” / Economist, December 22, 2001.

And in 2005, the main article of one of the issues of Time magazine was titled as follows: Meet the Twixters (“Meet the Twixters” 6
Twixters (abbreviated from the English betwixt - “neither this nor that”, “neither fish nor fowl”) are young people who do not want to become adults and live with their parents or are financially dependent on them. Note. per.

)7
We are talking about Lev Grossman's editorial "Meet the Twixters", published in the Sunday issue of Time magazine for January 16, 2005. In his article, Grossman provided a comprehensive analysis of the economic, social and cultural changes in society that made young people in their twenties and thirties feel like they were worthless.

Both magazines said that in our time, the age of twenty to thirty years has become the period when young men and women can manage their lives as they wish and have the necessary means to do so. In 2007, this age has already begun to be called "years of wandering" - it was assumed that young people should devote their travels 8
See David Brooks. “The Odyssey Years” / New York Times, October 9, 2007.

Young men and women in their twenties have been dubbed by journalists and researchers as "children", "pre-adults", and "young adults".

Some say that the age of twenty to thirty is the continuation of adolescence, while others consider these years the beginning of adulthood. 9
Researcher Robert Jensen Arnett coined the term "nascent maturity" to refer to the age of eighteen to twenty-five. Arnett has done many excellent studies of this age group, some of which are mentioned in this book. I use the results of Robert Arnett's research in my book, but not the term "nascent maturity", because it covers the entire period from twenty to thirty years. Also, I don't think it's possible to strengthen the self-esteem of young people in their twenties by essentially saying they're not adults.

This so-called time shift s The X Framework for Growing Upgraded the status of young people in their twenties and thirties to “not quite adults” – and this is when they need to act most 10
See Richard Settersten, Barbara E. Ray. Not Quite Adults: Why 20-Some-things Are Choosing a Slower Path to Adulthood, and Why It’s Good for Everyone (NewYork: Bantam Books, 2010).

As a result, Kate and young people like her fell into a whirlpool of bias and misunderstanding, which led to an overly simplistic perception of the decade that defines their entire adult life.

However, despite our dismissive attitude towards young people in their twenties, we sometimes make a fetish out of them. Popular culture is overly focused on this age category, presenting it as years of carelessness, when you need to take everything from life in full. Celebrity kids and regular teenagers spend their adolescence like they're in their twenties, and young adults dress and act like Real Housewives characters to look twenty-nine. As a result, boys and girls look older, and adults look younger, which turns adult life into one long period of twenty years. To describe the situation when a person leads the same way of life and adheres to the same views from youth until death, they even invented a new term - “mortality” 11
See Catherine Mayer “10 Ideas Changing the World Right Now” / Time magazine, March 12, 2009.

This is a controversial and dangerous idea. On the one hand, they are trying to convince us that the age from twenty to thirty does not play a special role in a person’s life, and on the other hand, there is glamorization and almost an obsession with this age, but little reminds us that there are many things in life. other important things. All of this leads to a mindless waste of the most transformational years of their adult lives, and the price is paid for in the following decades.

Our cultural attitude towards twenty and thirty is somewhat reminiscent of the good old days when America was in a state of irrational exuberance. Twenty-year-olds in the 21st century grew up during the dot-com boom 12
Dotcom is a company whose business model is based on working on the Internet. Note. ed.

Portion increases in fast food restaurants, a real estate bubble and Wall Street over-excitement. Startups 13
A startup, or start-up company, is a company with a short history of operations. As a rule, such companies were created recently, are in the stage of development or research of promising markets. Note. ed.

They thought that their elegant sites would stimulate demand and help make money; people didn't think about the calories they get from larger portions; homeowners had no doubt that their homes would always rise in value; financial analysts believed that the market would invariably be in a state of recovery. Adults of all ages have allowed what psychologists call "unrealistic optimism" (the idea that nothing bad will ever happen to you) to take precedence over logic and common sense. Adults of all categories could not calculate the possible consequences. As a result, the generation of twenty-thirty-year-olds has become a new "bubble", and it is about to burst.

In my office, I have seen this happen more than once.

The global economic crisis, the effects of which are still being felt, left many young men and women in their early twenties feeling inadequately mature and even empty. Today, these young people are more educated than ever before, but are less likely to find work after they graduate. Many young professionals get their first work experience abroad, so it is not easy for them to strengthen their position at home 14
For an in-depth analysis of postmodern economics and its implications, see Richard Sennett. “The New Political Economy and Its Culture” / The Hedgehog Review 12 (2000): 55–71.

With economic growth slowing down and the population growing, unemployment has reached its highest high level for several decades 15
Current statistics can be found on the US Bureau of Labor Statistics website: http://www.bls.gov/cps.

After graduation, young professionals can only count on an unpaid internship as their first job. 16
Competing for unpaid internships is discussed in the following article: Gerry Shih, “Unpaid Work, But They Pay for Privilege” / New York Times, August 8, 2009.

About a quarter of twenty-thirty-year-olds are unemployed, and another quarter work part-time 17
For the latest data on the 21st century's 21st century generation, see the Pew Research Center's 2010 report Millennials: Confident. connected. Open to Change”, which can be accessed at: http://pewresearch.org/millennials.

Inflation-adjusted, boys and girls in their twenties who have full-time jobs earn less than their peers in the 1970s 18
In addition to the Pew Research Center report, information on young people's transition to adulthood can also be found at the Network on Transitions to Adulthood Research Network website: www.transitions2adulthood.com.

As short-term work has taken the place of long-term careers, young people often change jobs in their twenties: only in their third decade of life, on average, several jobs appear on their resumes. A third of boys and girls at this age change their place of residence, leaving their relatives and friends 19
See chapter 1 for the description of Jeffrey Jensen Arne's Beginnings of Adulthood: A Winding Journey from Late Youth to Twenties. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, Emerging Adulthood: The Winding Road from the Late Teens through the Twenties (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

Approximately one in eight returns to their parental home, not least because their wages are quite low and student loans are high: over the past ten years, the number of students who have this debt exceeding $40,000 has increased ten times 20
See Project on Student Debt: http://projectonstudentdebt.org.

It seems that everyone wants to stay in their twenties, except for those who are actually in their twenties. The statement “thirty is the new twenty” begins to evoke a very different reaction in young people: “God, I hope that’s not so.”

Every day I work with young people who feel deceived by the assurances that the age of twenty to thirty will be the best period of their lives. It seems to people that doing psychotherapy sessions with those who are in their early twenties is listening to stories about the adventures and misfortunes of carefree boys and girls - and to some extent this is true. But behind closed doors, my clients talk about what really worries them:

I feel like I'm in the middle of the ocean. It's like I can swim in any direction, but the land is nowhere to be seen and I don't know where to swim.

I didn't know that I would cry every day at work.

In your 20s, you perceive time in a completely different way. There is a lot of time ahead when a lot of interesting things should happen.

My sister is thirty-five years old and still unmarried. I think with horror that the same thing will happen to me.

I can't wait to get rid of my 20+ years.

I'd rather not do this after thirty.

Last night I prayed for some certainty in my life.

There are over fifty million young people in the United States in their twenties and thirties, and for most of them there is an astonishing, unprecedented uncertainty in their lives. Many of these young men and women have no idea what they will be doing or with whom they will be living in two years or even ten years. They don't know when they'll be happy or able to pay their bills. They wonder if they should be photographers, lawyers, designers or bankers. They do not know when a serious relationship will appear in their life - after a few dates or after many years. They are worried about whether they can start a family and how long their marriage will last. Simply put, they do not know if their lives will get better and what future is prepared for them.

Uncertainty makes people feel anxious, and entertainment has become a real “opium for the people” in the 21st century. As a result, young people over twenty are tempted and even encouraged to turn a blind eye and hope for the best. In 2011, New York Magazine published an article arguing that “youth is actually fine and that although the current generation of young men and women in their twenties and thirties is facing the worst economic conditions since the Second World world war, they are still optimistic" 21
See Noreen Malone, “The Kids Are Actually Sort of Alright” / New York magazine, October 24, 2011.

This article states that with the sheer amount of free music available online, "it doesn't take a lot of money to buy a large collection of music recordings." The author of the article claims that Facebook, Twitter, Google, and free apps have "made life on a budget so much more fun."

There is a saying: "Hope is a good breakfast, but a bad dinner" 22
This saying belongs to Francis Bacon.

Hope is a really beneficial state of mind that helps many depressed young men and women in their twenties get out of bed in the morning, but at the end of the day they need something more than optimism, because by the end of the third decade they will need something more than entertainment and record collections.

I know this well even not so much from sessions with young people in their twenties who are trying to overcome some difficulties, but from sessions with twisters - people in their thirties or forties who are very sorry that they did not do everything differently. I have seen with my own eyes what kind of mental anguish people experience when it seems that their life has failed. We often hear that 30 is the new 20, but whether in times of economic crisis or not, when it comes to work and love, mind and body, 40 is definitely not the new 30.

Many young people between twenty and thirty believe that after thirty their life will quickly improve. Perhaps this is so, but still it will be a completely different life. It seems to us that if nothing interesting happens in our life in our twenty-something years, then it will happen after thirty. We believe that by avoiding decision making in currently we leave the possibilities open, but not making a choice is also a choice.

When we leave everything for later, after thirty, a huge burden falls on our shoulders: we need to succeed in something, get married or get married, choose a city to live in, earn money, buy a house, enjoy life, go to university, start a business, get promoted, save money for school and retirement, have two or three children, all in a very short time frame. Many of these tasks are simply incompatible; besides, as recent studies show, after thirty it is much more difficult to do all this at the same time 23
See Suzanne Bianchi's November 2010 Focus on Workplace Flexibility talk: S. M. Bianchi. “Family Change and Time Allocation in American Families.” This report is available at: http://workplaceflexibility.org. The research of Susanna Bianchi is discussed in the chapter “Everything has its time”.

At thirty, life does not end, but it feels completely different. A motley summary, reflecting the freedom of the third decade, arouses suspicion and confusion. A successful first date does not lead to dreams about “that very, only beloved person”, but to calculating options for how to get married and have a baby as soon as possible.

Of course, this is exactly what happens in the lives of many young people, and married couples made of people over thirty often talk about new purpose and meaning in their lives. However, many experience a deep, agonizing sense of regret at this age: they know that they will not be able to provide for their children as they would like; find that reproductive problems or complete exhaustion of forces do not allow them to have such a family as they dreamed of; realize that they will be nearly sixty when their children go to college and nearly seventy when they are married; understand that they may never see their grandchildren.

Many parents (like Kate's parents) try to protect their children from his mid-life crisis (from his regret that they settled down too early), but they do not notice that their children are facing a completely different kind of midlife crisis. The midlife crisis of the new millennium is the realization that in trying to get the most out of life without missing anything, we sometimes miss the most important thing. This realization that doing something later doesn't always mean doing it better. Many smart and successful people thirty or forty years lament the fact that now they have to make up for lost time. They look at themselves (and at me, sitting in my office) and talk about their twenties like this: “What am I did? What am I talking about thought?»

important years. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life

THE DEFINING

Why Your Twenties Matter and how to Make the Most of Them Now

Published with permission from Meg Jay, c/o JANKLOW & NESBIT ASSOCIATES

All rights reserved. No part of the electronic version of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including posting on the Internet and corporate networks, for private and public use, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

Legal support for the publishing house is provided by Vegas Lex law firm.

This book is well complemented by:

Ken Robinson

Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica

Kelly McGonigal

M. J. Ryan

Brian Tracy

Les Hewitt

Les Hewitt, Andrew Hewitt and Luc d'Abadie

About the millennium

The Important Years is for those in their twenties. However, parents believe that this book is for them. Colleagues believe that I wrote it for psychotherapists and teachers. When twenty-year-old boys and girls ask me: “Who is this book for?” - they sincerely rejoice when they hear in response: “For you!”.

Many are struck by the fact that instead of talking O those who are over twenty, I prefer to communicate With them. Enough already of all these adults who only do what they discuss with the youth! People in their twenties are also adults, and they have earned the right to take part in the discussion of their own lives. Perhaps, under the influence of popular culture, we consider twenty-year-old boys and girls to be too cocky, ignorant, lazy or jaded to take part in such discussions - but in fact this is far from the case. In my private practice, as well as in college and graduate school, I have met many young people in their twenties who are in dire need of meaningful, sincere communication. In The Important Years, I use my research and clinical experience to debunk myths about ages twenty to thirty: thirty is the new twenty; we cannot choose our family; to do something later in life is to do it better. But the argument that young men and women over twenty lack the common sense to be interested in such information and understand that it can change their lives is perhaps the biggest misconception.

The pendulum has swung from “I settled too early” to “I started too late,” and millennials are trying to find the right path. However, all those high expectations on which this generation was brought up, collided with the realities of the global economic crisis, which is why the very “right path” turned out to be even more distant than ever before. However, instead of complaining about what the economy (or their parents) has done to them, young millennials are ready to move on and wait for someone to ask them, “What are you going to do with all this?”.

My first psychotherapy session with a twenty-year-old client was in 1999, after which for ten years I mostly listened to the representatives of the millennial generation behind closed doors - every day, from morning to evening. Perhaps today's youth share the details of their personal lives with someone, but on their blogs, on Facebook and on Twitter, they are much less frank than in my office. That is why I know about those who are over twenty, what others do not know about them. Moreover, I even know what they do not know about themselves.

Well, my dear readers, in this book you will find what you were looking for.

Young millennials, as well as parents, leaders, teachers, and anyone interested in the subject, this book is for you.

Foreword

Defining decade

25.09.2017

The Important Years book summary. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life.

The author of the book Important Years Dr. Mag Jay is sure that the time between twenty and thirty years can be called the main decade of all life. The decisions made at this time determine the rest of a person's life.

Mag Jay - About the Author

PhD Mag Jay - American psychologist. Teacher clinical psychology at the University of Virginia. Leads private practice in Charlottesville. Dr. Jay received her PhD in Clinical Psychology and Gender Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Meg studies the development of young people in their twenties and thirties. At Berkeley, she worked on one of the longest-running studies on the stages of growth and development a woman's body goes through. Her research on women, depression and gender differences was commissioned by the National Institute of Mental Health. The results are published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Mag Jay's work has been featured in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Forbes, Psychology Today, and NPR.

Important Years - Summary Books

Mag Jay's book "Important Years" will help you not to escape from life, but to skillfully manage it:

Choose your business from the many opportunities that the world offers;
Do not be afraid to ask for help, make friends and build professional relationships;
Choose a partner and create a harmonious family;
Helps to recognize important stages in life;
Gain inner confidence and experience.

Identity capital and work

Identity Capital- a set of personal assets, a stock of individual resources that we accumulate over time. This is our investment in ourselves. What we do well enough or long enough to become a part of us:

Education, work experience, test scores;
our way of speaking, how we deal with issues;
how we look, how we treat other people.

Identity capital is how we create ourselves step by step. Young people who are able not only to explore this world, but also to make certain commitments, create a stronger identity. They have higher self-esteem, they are more persistent in achieving their goals, they are more realistic about the world. This path to identity leads to a number of positive outcomes:

A clearer sense of one's own "I";
- higher life satisfaction;
- increased ability to cope with stress;
- resistance to conformity.

Advice to young people over twenty: try to choose an occupation that will allow you to accumulate the maximum capital of identity.

A successful career begins with the formation of a professional identity.

The first stage of formation is the determination of one's own interests and abilities.
The second stage is the compilation of a story that would be quite complex, coherent, and also different from other stories. Too simple a story can reveal a lack of experience, too complex - a certain internal disorganization of the candidate, which employers do not need at all

Weak Ties

Weak Ties- these are people with whom we meet in one way or another, maintain contacts, but do not know each other closely enough. Colleagues, neighbors, acquaintances, old but long lost friends. These are former employers, teachers, other people who have not become our close friends.

Strong Ties- our family, close friends with whom we constantly keep in touch. The weakness of strong ties is that our close friends hold us back. Strong ties are convenient and familiar to us, but apart from support, they have nothing to offer. The people with whom we form close relationships are too similar to each other. And sometimes the whole close company stops at one level of development. Our close friends have the same job and relationship information as we do.

Weak ties encourage us to communicate with other people from a position of dissimilarity and to use extended language codes: we speak in more detail, completeness and thoughtfulness, and articulate our ideas much more clearly. Thus, weak ties activate, and sometimes even force a deliberate process of development and change.

The one who once did you good is more willing to help you again than the one whom you yourself helped.

When you ask people with whom you have weak ties to give you recommendations, make suggestions, etc., conduct the necessary preparatory work, realize what you really need and what you are striving for. And then politely ask for it.

How to make a choice

Young people are constantly told that there are an infinite number of alternatives before them. They are taught that they can do anything. It's like standing in front of twenty-four kinds of jam. But twenty-year-olds first of all need to realize that this table does not exist. It is a myth. There are no limitless possibilities, but there is a choice. In order to make this choice, you need to ask yourself questions: “What can I do well enough to provide the life I aspire to?”, “What activity can be so pleasant for me that I will be ready to do it all my life? ".

Confidence comes from experience

Researchers have found that people have two types of thinking:
Thinking is fixed;
Thinking is evolving.

Fixed-minded people are convinced that their worth or competence is a constant. That is, they unshakably believe that, for example, they have the ability or talent for this activity or they do not. And there is no way to change anything.
People with developing mindsets are convinced that a person can change and success is an achievable value. A person can learn and develop within certain limits. Such people perceive failures and misses as a chance for development and change.

A fixed mindset hinders success. Students with this mindset quickly lose self-confidence in the face of a difficult task, they abandon difficult projects, and experience mental anguish, shame, and frustration in relation to their studies.

In order to professional activity increased self-confidence, it should be difficult and interesting.

Keep on living and moving on

Between the ages of twenty and thirty, a person's personality changes to a much greater extent than at any period before or after. Clinical psychologists have found that of all the stages life path this one is the best for changing. Young people are able to move from social anxiety to social confidence or overcome the consequences of an unhappy childhood in a relatively short period of time. Change happens the moment long-term career and relationship choices are made, and these young people's lives can be very different from that.

The age of twenty to thirty is not the time to analyze what happened, but the time to continue development and movement. At this time, we turn into people who are more satisfied with life and self-confident. And positive change comes from the ability to keep going and move on. Trying to avoid adulthood will not make you feel better; it can only happen through investment in adulthood. Greater love or work that you will be proud of - such a goal may seem elusive, but we become happier just moving in this direction.

Our goals show us who we are and who we want to become. They talk about how we organize our lives. Goals are the building blocks of adult personality: the goals you set for yourself now determine who you will be in your thirties and forties and beyond.

Conclusion

The most important events occur throughout a person's life, but those events that determine the future life fall on a period of twenty to thirty years. During this period, it is important for young people to accumulate identity capital - a stock of individual resources, the accumulation of knowledge and skills. What we do and know well enough: education, work experience, manner of speaking, solving problems, treating ourselves and others.

Weak and strong social ties. Weak ties - acquaintances, colleagues, distant friends, teachers, etc. - give us access to something new, promote job search and activate the processes of development and change. Strong ties - family and close friends - our support and support, a resource for recovery forces.

Be sure that you fulfill your desires and do not sacrifice your interests for outside judgments about how your life should be.
A successful career begins with the formation of a professional identity: identify your interests and abilities, write your story, which will clearly show how what you did before helps you now and what you intend to do in the future.

When choosing a partner, you need to understand that from now on all the events of your life will be intertwined. With long-term cohabitation, the couple may experience a “cohabitation effect” -long relationship without obligations that do not lead to marriage. The way to protect yourself from this effect is to determine how serious your partner's intentions are before you start living with him.
The collapse of hopes and disappointments have an overwhelming effect on the personality. Success stories are transformative. Edit your stories with new positive conversations and events.

Our personality is made up of five factors: openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and emotional instability. An analysis of one's own personality will help determine which segment of the range it falls into - upper, lower or in the middle - and which person should be nearby.
The human brain develops from the bottom up and from the back to the front. Our emotional brain is formed in childhood, while the frontal lobe, the thinking brain responsible for analysis, the ability to act in conditions of uncertainty, finishes developing by the age of thirty.

Young people sometimes find it difficult to cope with strong emotions and feelings, for this you need to take control of your reactions and prevent negative emotions by an effort of will. People who are able to manage their emotions are more satisfied with their lives, optimistic and purposeful.
Self-confidence is a quality acquired with experience. It is based on memories of the successes achieved, if they were given at the cost of great efforts. Enduring confidence is the result of achieving success and overcoming failure.

Set goals and achieve them. Goals are structural elements of an adult's personality. The goals you set for yourself determine who you will be in your thirties to forties and beyond.
Don't forget that there is a time for everything. Late marriage is fraught with difficulties in conceiving and having children: the number of eggs decreases, sperm ages, and the likelihood of miscarriages increases.
Always remember the time. Life outside of time is unproductive and does not bring happiness. It is comparable to life in a cave, when you do not know what time it is, what to do and where to go.

TED talk by Meg Jay, author of Important Years

The age of twenty to thirty years is the real time that you need to live properly. A culture that considers thirty to be the new twenty has taught us that the period from twenty to thirty does not play a special role in our lives. Sigmund Freud once said: "Love and work, work and love - that's all that makes us human." Today, these aspects of human life take shape at a later age than in former times.

When Kate's parents were in their twenties, the average age of marriage and first child was twenty-one. Education was limited to finishing high school or college, and young parents were mainly busy with earning money and running the household. Since the income of one of the spouses was sufficient to support the family, the men in most cases worked, while two-thirds of the women did not. People could work in the same field all their lives. At the time, the median home price was $17,000. Divorces and contraceptives have just begun to become widespread.

Then, within a single generation, there was a huge cultural shift. There are many reliable and convenient contraceptives on the market; many women were able to work. By the turn of the new millennium, only half of young people were getting married before their thirties, and even fewer were having children. All this made the age of twenty to thirty a time of newfound freedom. The prevailing view has become that college is too expensive and unnecessary, and that university is more important, but in both cases there is plenty of time for leisure.

As a result, the age of twenty to thirty years has become a time of uncertainty for young people. In 2001, the Economist magazine published an article called Bridget Jones Economy (“Economics of Bridget Jones”), and in 2005, the main article of one of the issues of Time magazine was entitled: Meet the Twixters (“Meet the Twixters”). Both magazines said that in our time, the age of twenty to thirty years has become the period when young men and women can manage their lives as they wish and have the necessary means to do so. In 2007, this age has already begun to be called "years of wandering" - it was assumed that young people should devote them to traveling. Young men and women in their twenties have been dubbed by journalists and researchers as "children", "pre-adults", and "young adults".

Some say that the age of twenty to thirty is the continuation of adolescence, while others consider these years the beginning of adulthood. This so-called time shift s The x framework of growing up has downgraded the status of young people in their twenties and thirties to “not quite adults” – and this is when they most need to act. As a result, Kate and young people like her fell into a whirlpool of bias and misunderstanding, which led to an overly simplistic perception of the decade that defines their entire adult life.

Our cultural attitude towards twenty and thirty is somewhat reminiscent of the good old days when America was in a state of irrational exuberance. Twenty-first century young adults have grown up during the dot-com boom, increased portion sizes at fast food restaurants, a real estate bubble, and Wall Street over-excitement. Startups believed that their elegant sites would stimulate demand and help make money; people didn't think about the calories they get from larger portions; homeowners had no doubt that their homes would always rise in value; financial analysts believed that the market would invariably be in a state of recovery. Adults of all ages have allowed what psychologists call "unrealistic optimism" (the idea that nothing bad will ever happen to you) to take precedence over logic and common sense. Adults of all categories could not calculate the possible consequences. As a result, the generation of twenty-thirty-year-olds has become a new "bubble", and it is about to burst.

A purposeful person will not feel like a passenger in his own life. Actions create life in real time.

Age from twenty to thirty - a time of uncertainty and "years of wandering." For people in their twenties, a short-term job has taken the place of a long-term career.

Young people over twenty in the 21st century are being tempted and even encouraged to turn a blind eye and hope for the best. People in their twenties and thirties believe that by avoiding making decisions in the moment, they are leaving opportunities open, but not making a choice is also a choice.

Doing something later doesn't always mean doing it better. Modern young people begin to think about the future later than their parents did in their time.

Identity Capital

In young people between the ages of 20 and 30 years of self-digging often leads to the opposite results.

What we do well enough, or long enough for it to become part of us, is our investment in ourselves.

The more time it takes for us to establish a strong position in the professional field, the more likely we are to become "different and traumatized."

Weak Ties

Weak ties are people with whom we meet or keep in touch, but do not know each other well enough. Our friends may bring soup when we're sick, but it's the people we barely know who can quickly and radically change our lives for the better.

Similarity breeds friendship. People most often build close relationships with those who are similar to themselves.

Information and opportunities travel through weak ties much faster than through close friends, because people with weak ties have fewer common contacts. Weak ties are like a bridge with no end in sight, meaning no one knows where it might lead.

Unconscious known

If you cannot distinguish one direction from another, you will not be able to make a choice. The unwillingness to make a choice is the hope that there is some way to live life without taking any responsibility.

The unconscious known is what we know about ourselves, but somehow forgot. These are the dreams we have lost, or the truths we share but avoid openly supporting. We are experiencing how this unconscious known will affect us and our lives.

The real uncertainty begins precisely at the moment of choice. The worst uncertainty is to strive for something without knowing how to achieve it.

It is possible not to make a choice, but such an attitude will not protect against dangers. This will certainly entail certain consequences, but they will manifest themselves a little later - in thirty or forty years.

Everything on Facebook should look beautiful.

For many, Facebook is not so much a tool for finding friends as the ability to track information about them. Facebook users, on average, spend more time browsing other users' pages than creating content on their own. Such amateurs of "social investigation" do not so much establish or maintain contact with friends as observe their lives.

Facebook can turn our everyday life to that wedding we've all heard about: when the bride chooses her bridesmaids from among the most beautiful girls, and not from among the most beautiful friends. Having a presence on Facebook turns into a fight for popularity, when the main thing is to get a "like"; being the best is the only worthy option; appearance our partners are more important than their actions.

Facebook is not a way to communicate, but a chance to be on top, to keep up with others. Worst of all, we now have to conform not only to our close friends and neighbors, but to hundreds of other people whose artificial statuses constantly remind us of how wonderful life should be.

One element of realizing our potential comes down to being aware of how our abilities and limitations fit into the world around us. In other words, we must be aware of our true potential.

A person perceives goals as true dreams, and various “shoulds” are perceived as heavy obligations.

Life is not about eating, praying, and loving, but about people, places, and specific events: who we relate to, where we live, and what we do to earn a living.

Life to order

Originality is one of the factors that make us who we are. It fills our life with meaning. In many cases, the most important thing we know about who we are is who we are not. We refer to ourselves as “not this” or “not this”.

A thirty-nine-year-old woman told the author: “At this point in my life, I plan to work, hire a nanny for the children and not see them all day, so I need an interesting and well-paid job. But I can't find it. In my twenties, I didn't think about work at all. After thirty I had children. We need money, so I need a job, but you won't believe it - I just can't get one. I go to interviews, and there they look at me with bewilderment: “What have you been doing all this time?” I am very sorry that once in my life there was no person who would explain to me that it was time for a long time think long and hard about your resume.

Young people who do not start careers in their twenties and thirties end up with a blank resume and break away from real life, and all this only in order to still stop at something, but much later.

Between the ages of twenty and thirty good story much more important than at any other time in life. After graduating from college, a resume is just beginning to take shape, so talking about yourself is one of the few things a person can express themselves in. In your twenties, life is more of a potential than a fait accompli. A person who knows how to tell interestingly about himself and his plans is able to surpass someone who cannot do this.

Life doesn't have to be linear, but it does need to make sense. There is only one way to live a happy life: to do what is not only interesting, but also meaningful.

Talk about the main

Starting a family is one of major events in our life, because a lot depends on it. Money, work, lifestyle, family, health, leisure, retirement and even death all turn into a couples race. Almost all the events of your life will be closely intertwined with the events of your partner's life.

Even if the marriage turns out to be unsuccessful, it cannot simply be abandoned as a boring job. And after a divorce, spouses can forever remain financially and domestically connected to each other, as they pay for the child's education and meet every weekend in the driveway to the house to give or take the children.

"Remarriage is the triumph of hope over experience." Currently, half of the twenty-thirty-year-olds have gone through a divorce, and everyone knows who has gone through it too.

Those who had failed marriages believed that if they were happier after a divorce, then their children would be happy too. However, as these children grew up, the “unexpected legacy of divorce” made itself felt. Many children of divorced parents say they didn't notice or pay attention to the fact that their parents were unhappy in their marriage. They knew only one thing: their lives fell apart when their parents separated, because after that they received too little of the blessings and attention of their parents.

It is well established that marriage between young people under the age of twenty is the most unstable, but postponing marriage for later does not guarantee the strength of the union.

Cohabitation effect

Men and women unanimously declare that their standards for partners are much lower than for spouses. Couples who live together before marriage but after their engagement, and who have made public commitments, are no more likely to have a failed or dissolved marriage than couples who do not live together before marriage.

Very often, young people in their twenties decide to live with their partners, believing that it is cheaper and does not carry any risk. However, after a few months or years, they realize that they cannot break this vicious circle.

In behavioral economics, this phenomenon is referred to as consumer closure. A closure is a situation where choosing one option significantly reduces the likelihood of choosing another after an investment has already been made in something.

Compatibility: similarity and sympathy

People who have a lot in common react the same way to a rainy day, a new car, a long vacation, an anniversary, a Sunday morning, and a noisy party. The similarity between partners is the main element of their compatibility. Couples who are highly similar on criteria such as socioeconomic status, education, age, ethnicity, religion, attractiveness, attitudes, values, and intelligence level are more likely to be satisfied with their relationship and less likely to end it.

Among the factors preventing the creation of a couple are your personal requirements for a relationship. The more common personal qualities partners have, the more likely they are to be satisfied with their relationship.

Personal qualities are not what we have done or even what we are, but how we interact with the outside world, and everything that we do depends on it. Personal qualities are that part of our "I" that we take with us everywhere.

In most cases, people break up due to lack of change.

Build a shared vision and common life- the task of young couples. Similar qualities are perceived as a reassuring factor confirming the correctness of the choice, and differences can seem threatening.

However, after forty years, when work, children, home, affairs, relatives and community come to the fore, family life less focused on relationships between spouses. When couples have to do more than just dine and spend the weekend together, a variety of skills and interests can come in handy. In this case, differences bring a fresh stream to life.

To successfully cope with studies, you need to be able to solve problems that have the right answers and clear deadlines for solving. However, to be an adult capable of thinking ahead, it is necessary to be able to think and act even (and especially) in conditions of uncertainty.

We become what we see, hear and do every day. We cannot become what we do not see, hear, and do daily. In neuroscience, this phenomenon is known as survival of the most active.

Confidence comes from experience

Self-confidence is not an innate quality, but a quality acquired with experience. Whether it's about love or work, self-confidence only wins out over insecurity when it's backed by experience. There is no other way.

Young people in their twenties who, due to low self-confidence, hide from life, doing work that does not correspond to their qualifications, act against their own interests. In order for professional activity to increase self-confidence, it must be difficult and interesting. And it is necessary to deal with it, without resorting too often to someone else's help. In such work, everything cannot be done and always done flawlessly.

By managing your emotions, you build self-confidence. Knowing what you want to do does not mean knowing how to do it, and knowing how to do your job does not mean doing it well.

Keep on living and moving on

Life becomes easier between the ages of twenty and thirty. We become emotionally more stable and do not endure the vicissitudes of fate so painfully. We are becoming more responsible and socially literate. We are more willing to accept life as it is and are willing to cooperate with other people. In general, we turn into people who are more satisfied with life and self-confident, and also experience less anxiety and anger. However, these changes do not happen to everyone.

Trying to avoid adulthood will not make you feel better; it can only happen through investment in adulthood. Twenty-odd years is a period when we move from school to work, from casual relationships to real relationships, from sleepovers on other people's sofas to our own apartment. Most of these changes require us to make adult commitments that fundamentally change both our position in society and who we really are.

Investing in love and work starts the process of personality maturation. The status of an employee of a company or a successful partner contributes to its transformation, and permanent residence in one place helps to lead a more measured lifestyle. On the contrary, young men and women in their twenties who do not aspire to live full life and move on experience feelings such as depression, anger, and alienation.

Active goal setting in your twenties and thirties contributes to increased focus, skill, action, and well-being in your thirties and forties. Our goals show who we are and who we want to become. They talk about how we organize our lives. The goals you set for yourself now determine who you will be in your thirties and forties and beyond.

Sustainable relationships reduce social anxiety and depression because they make us feel less alone and allow us to practice skills. interpersonal communication. We learn to manage emotions and resolve conflicts. Relationships with lovers help us find new ways to prepare for life in the adult world. And on days when it becomes really hard for us to get through what is happening, they can be a source of reassurance and a safer refuge, something we can find with our parents.

The constant absence of a couple can have a detrimental effect on the lives of men, since those who lead a lonely lifestyle in their twenties, self-esteem drops significantly by the age of thirty.

A little about time

The age of twenty to thirty can turn into a timeless life. After we graduate, we leave behind the only life we've ever known. But now our life is revealed, and educational plans disappear without a trace. There are days, weeks, months and years, but there is no way to know when and why one or another event should be experienced. This can be misleading and turn life into a kind of existence in a cave.

People of all ages and walks of life do not take the future seriously, preferring to be rewarded today rather than tomorrow. It's more important for us to have $100 now than $150 next month. We choose a chocolate brownie and a new thing now, and we decide to deal with the gym and a credit card later.

This is not only characteristic of young people after twenty. This is a universal human quality that underlies addictions, procrastination, health problems, and frivolous attitudes towards retirement savings. In many cases, it is difficult for us to think about what will happen in the indefinite future and give it any meaning.

The age of twenty to thirty years is the period during which we begin to form a sense of time, and we make our own plans for our future life. Determining when to pursue a career and start a family is difficult enough. It is much easier not to think about anything and stay away from problems.

However, young people in their twenties who live outside of time tend not to be happy. It's like living in a cave where we can't tell what time it is, we don't know what we should do or why, and sometimes it goes on until it's too late to change anything.

Will all this help me?

At the entrance to national park"Rocky Mountains" hangs a sign with the inscription, made in large bold letters: "THE MOUNTAINS ARE ALL EQUAL." This sign warns park visitors to be properly equipped and prepared for hazards such as lightning and avalanches.

The author was twenty-eight years old when she first saw this inscription. It inspired fear, but the author immediately liked it. It meant a lot to her that the truth was written on this tablet. The inscription reminded her that, going to the reserve, she must know where she is going and be ready for anything.

It's the same with adulthood. There are things that should be accepted as they are. The best thing to do is to learn as much as possible about them.

Deep down, young people in their early twenties want to be reckoned with and taken seriously in their lives. They want to know that what they do matters - and it really does.

There is no formula for a good life, just as there is no right or wrong life. But there is a choice and its consequences, so it would be useful for twenty-year-old boys and girls to think about their future. This will make them feel better when that future arrives. If you pay enough attention to your life between the ages of twenty and thirty, wonderful days await you.

The future is not written in heaven. There are no guarantees. So take responsibility for your life. Set goals. Find a job. Create a family. Don't forget about time. Bring certainty into your life. Your fate should not depend on the fact that you did not know something or did not do something. You are now making a choice that will determine your entire life.

Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life. You should know it! To find a good job

Mag Jay
important years. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life

Prologue. About the millennium

Preface. Defining decade

Introduction. Life in real time

The Important Years book summary. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life.

Mag Jay - About the Author

Important Years - Summary Books

Identity capital and work

Weak Ties

How to make a choice

Confidence comes from experience

Keep on living and moving on

Conclusion

TED talk by Meg Jay, author of Important Years

Identity Capital

Weak Ties

Unconscious known

Everything on Facebook should look beautiful.

Life to order

Talk about the main

Cohabitation effect

Compatibility: similarity and sympathy

Confidence comes from experience

Keep on living and moving on

A little about time

Will all this help me?

Collection of ideal social studies essays

Anti-Soviet rebellion in Hungary (1956)

Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life. You should know it! To find a good job

Mag Jay important years. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life

Prologue. About the millennium

Preface. Defining decade

Introduction. Life in real time

The Important Years book summary. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life.

Mag Jay - About the Author

Important Years - Summary Books

Identity capital and work

Weak Ties

How to make a choice

Confidence comes from experience

Keep on living and moving on

Conclusion

TED talk by Meg Jay, author of Important Years

Identity Capital

Weak Ties

Unconscious known

Everything on Facebook should look beautiful.

Life to order

Talk about the main

Cohabitation effect

Compatibility: similarity and sympathy

Confidence comes from experience

Keep on living and moving on

A little about time

Will all this help me?

Collection of ideal social studies essays

Anti-Soviet rebellion in Hungary (1956)

Mag Jay
important years. Why You Shouldn't Postpone Your Life